As scores of fires raged across Australia’s parched southeast, a volunteer firefighter suffered severe burns to his hands and face while fighting a grass firenear Gundaroo village, about 220 kilometres southwest of Sydney, the New South Wales state Rural Fire Service said in a statement. The firefighter was flown to a hospital in Sydney.

Tilyard said 11 teams of officials were searching for the roughly 100 missing residents in places including the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, where around 90 homes were destroyed.

“Until we’ve had the opportunity to do all the screening that we need to do at each of those premises, we can’t say for certain that there hasn’t been a humanlife or more than one human life lost as a result of these fires,” Tilyard told reporters.

Three fires continued to burn out of control in southern Tasmania and in the northwest Monday.

Police charged a 31-year-old man with starting one of the southern fires, near Lake Repulse, by leaving a camp fire unattended last week.

Police did not release his name, and it was not clear what penalty he could face if convicted.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who flew to Tasmania on Monday, warned that New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, was about to move into a period of extreme heat Tuesday and that the wildfire risk would be high.

“We live in a country that is hot and dry and where we sustain very destructive fires periodically,” Gillard told reporters. “Whilst you would not put any one eventdown to climatechange … we do know over time that as a result of climate change we are going to see more extreme weatherevents and conditions.”

New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said more than 90 wildfires were blazing across the state Monday, including the Gundaroo fire. He warned that conditions would worsen on Tuesday. No homes were currently under threat.

“It is going to be very hot and very dry. Couple that with the dryness of the vegetation, the grassland fuels, the forest fuels and those strong winds that are expected tomorrow,” he said.

Temperatures across much the state was expected to reach 45 C on Tuesday, while winds were expected to be as strong as 80 kilometres per hour.